A health-care provider is likely to be the first professional contact
for survivors of intimate partner violence or sexual assault.
Evidence suggests that women who have been subjected to
violence seek health care more often than non-abused women,
even if they do not disclose the associated violence. They also
identify health-care providers as the professionals they would
most trust with disclosure of abuse.

These guidelines are an unprecedented effort to equip healthcare
providers with evidence-based guidance as to how to
respond to intimate partner violence and sexual violence against
women.

They also provide advice for policy makers, encouraging better
coordination and funding of services, and greater attention
to responding to sexual violence and partner violence within
training programmes for health care providers.

The guidelines are based on systematic reviews of the
evidence, and cover:

The guidelines aim to raise awareness of violence against women among health-care providers
and policy-makers, so that they better understand the need for an appropriate health-sector
response. They provide standards that can form the basis for national guidelines, and for
integrating these issues into health-care provider education.